MONSTERS AND WATER BEASTS

Suggesting that we’ll find out for sure one day if we just wait, Miller presents a select few of the 2,600 recorded brushes with Bigfoot, the 2,000 reports of the Jersey Devil and encounters with seven other legend-wreathed creatures. Some, including Mothman and the Cadborosaurus, may be new even to confirmed young cryptozoologists, and the author is more or less evenhanded in her sifting of evidence. But because the book is so skimpy, and because Ruzzier plainly dashed off his fanciful painted portraits without much regard for accuracy or credibility, this trails behind Tales of the Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May or May Not Exist, by Kelly Milner Halls, Rick Spears and Roxyanne Young (2006). Still, the idea that there are still mysteries to be found in the natural world is well-served by the author’s lucid prose and matter-of-fact tone. (Nonfiction. 10-12)